Mark and Crystal Mandica founded the Amphibian Foundation in 2016. The Foundation focuses on the conservation of amphibians in the southeastern region of the United States. Mark and Crystal also lead educational initiatives that facilitate conversations addressing the global amphibian extinction crisis. How did Mark and Crystal build The Amphibian Foundation to what it is today? What is their philosophy about community building? What is critter camp for adults? Let’s find out.
Mark and Crystal Mandica founded the Amphibian Foundation in 2016. The Foundation focuses on the conservation of amphibians in the southeastern region of the United States. Mark and Crystal also lead educational initiatives that facilitate conversations addressing the global amphibian extinction crisis.
How did Mark and Crystal build The Amphibian Foundation to what it is today?
What is their philosophy about community building?
What is critter camp for adults?
Let’s find out.
LINKS
The Amphibian Foundation on Facebook
The Amphibian Foundation on Twitter
The Amphibian Foundation on Instagram
Donation page for The Amphibian Foundation
Urban Kings Citizen Science Project
Famous Frog Toughie Dies, Sending Species to Extinction
Taking Stock of Hurricane Michael's Effects on Rare Wild Animals
Tania Marien: [00:03] Welcome to Talaterra, a podcast about freelance educators working in natural resource fields and environmental education. Who are these educators? What do they do? Join me and let’s find out together. This is your host, Tania Marien.
Tania Marien: [00:34] Today my guests are Mark and Crystal Mandica, founders of The Amphibian Foundation in Atlanta, Georgia. Mark and Crystal lead educational initiatives that bring attention to the crisis surrounding the global extinction of amphibians. Their programs welcome herpetologists of all ages. How did Mark and Crystal build The Amphibian Foundation to what it is today? What is their philosophy about community building? What is critter camp for adults? Let’s find out.
Tania Marien: [01:07] Mark and Crystal, thank you so much for your time today and for stopping by to talk about The Amphibian Foundation.
Crystal Mandica: Thank you.
Mark Mandica: Yes, Absolutely.
Tania Marien: [01:17] Your organization was recommended by a listener and I went to your website and there is such a wealth of information on your website. If you followed all the links, that is really, truly immersive experience and-
Crystal Mandica: It sure is.
Tania Marien: [01:36] Yeah, it is, and your in your programs are wonderful and so I wanted to speak with you. You launched this initiative on your own-
Mark Mandica: Yes.
Crystal Mandica: Yeah.
Tania Marien: [01:48] I wanted to find out more about this initiative and how it got started, of course, and what you’re doing now. You are clearly very dedicated to your mission. It’s just wonderful, and you show your work so well. We’ll talk about that too. And so what is your earliest memory of enjoying nature?
Crystal Mandica: Well, I think I have an earlier idea of what nature meant to me than Mark does perhaps. We were talking about it a little bit, just figuring out how we got started in this love of nature, but for me, I grew up at least in my formative years in New York City and there isn’t a lot of nature necessarily in the city, but there was this one park next to my home that was filled with dandelions.
And so I would sit right in the middle of the field and just blow dandelions for hours on end almost. And I just loved that so much. And that was really the first piece of nature that clicked for me.
Tania Marien: [02:58] And Mark, how about you?
Mark Mandica: Well, I have a similar experience in a way because I grew up in New Jersey and I didn’t really see any nature. And so for me it’s really frogs were my bridge to nature, even though I never saw any growing up, I just always loved frogs and I would get gifts of frogs when I was little like toys that I loved. But I do remember going to Pennsylvania and witnessing my first wild frogs, it was very exciting for me.
At that time I just wanted to take them home, which I did. I had two frogs and I would force them to sit on my handlebars when I would ride my bike around, but they were really my bridge to really appreciating nature and ecosystems and all of that.
Tania Marien: [03:59] Oh, that’s a wonderful story. Frogs on the handlebars.
Mark Mandica: Except for the frogs, I’m sure they were terrified.
Tania Marien: [04:11] When did you realize nature was important to you? That it required some advocacy?
Mark Mandica: It was I’m sorry to say much later in life, so I managed to go through my first basically 30 years without understanding that biology was a discipline or that you could investigate frogs and how they worked. And so I had taken a biology class in college pass-fail because I was a sociology major and it really opened my eyes. And I just jumped… As soon as I learned that there was so much not understood about amphibians, I wanted to jump right in and start my studies.
And only after then did I realize that amphibians were in trouble, and the further I progressed in my studies, the more different ways for being understood about the impacts on amphibians and my trajectory shifted from biology to more conservation, and applied sciences and understanding how amphibians fit into a larger system, and that they’re responding to it very, very negatively
There are now so many different components in the environment are impacting amphibians at different levels. And then I felt like it was all hands on deck situation where I didn’t have the luxury of doing experiments on amphibians, I needed to get in and try to address these declines. It’s terrifying.
I haven’t been at it for very long, but it’s harder to find a frog now than it was when I started. And as you know, we have a little boy, it’s harder for him to find a frog than it was for me, and that’s just very profound.
Crystal Mandica: Yeah, I would agree. For me, I think it was even later. I didn’t realize what turmoil amphibians were under until I met Mark, and that was when I was 29 and it was great. It was very exciting for me to meet Mark and see all of the things that he was passionate about, but I didn’t realize that these creatures were under such attack until I met him and really got into the nitty gritty of what he was doing.
Tania Marien: [06:53] What were your lives before you launched such a huge organization?
Mark Mandica: Oh, huge.
Crystal Mandica: It was very different. I was pursuing music as my major life goal and I was a performer. Basically, I was a singer and songwriter. I would take my guitar and my amp and go out on gigs and I was really just trying to be a performer that I met Mark when I was 29 and he actually offered to record some of my music for me in his home studio and I couldn’t resist because he was so cute.
Mark Mandica: Oh.
Crystal Mandica: It just turned out that we had a lot in common, we had music in common, and then it turned out that we had a love of animals in common as well. It just grew from there.
Tania Marien: [07:49] Oh, nice. And Mark, what were you… You are then in music too, I suppose if you had a studio.
Mark Mandica: I did. I had a music studio mostly as a hobby. I do love to record music and play music, and I did use that as a lure to get Crystal over. But I was in graduate school at the time and I met her. I used to grade papers at her coffee shop that she was working in at the time and it was my other excuse to hang out near her.
Crystal Mandica: How sweet.
Mark Mandica: But we got engaged two weeks after we started hanging out.
Crystal Mandica: Yup.
Mark Mandica: And then we were married another two weeks after that.
Tania Marien: [08:43] Oh wow.
Mark Mandica: Boom.
Crystal Mandica: Yeah. We just knew.
Tania Marien: [08:51] When did you begin The Amphibian Foundation? And what was the impetus? What made you say, “okay, now, now this needs to happen?”
Mark Mandica: It’s pretty clear because I was managing amphibian conservation program in Atlanta at the botanical garden and the program was closed. We had already begun some pretty critical conservation programs and we didn’t want it to lose any momentum, so we felt like something had to be done immediately.
We had originally planned to start The Amphibian Foundation in our basement and we did. We had the world’s only permit to keep this one very imperiled species, the flatwood salamander. We still have the only permit that exists to hold that species, but we had them in our basements and it was terrifying. But it was really scary to have these super endangered salamanders in our basement.
But pretty soon after that we got to a place, and that was a huge win and a huge gift to us. It was just one of our passionate partners had some space to share, and so we moved in there and now we have them all set up very safely in a lab. That’s how it started. We only had the program in our basement for a couple of months, right?
Crystal Mandica: Right.
Mark Mandica: Yeah.
Tania Marien: [10:33] And this was in 2016, correct?
Mark Mandica: That’s right.
Crystal Mandica: Correct.
Mark Mandica: Okay. You are a young organization, this is a young organization that has accomplished so much. And when you started The Amphibian Foundation, what elements did you already have in place? What were you already practicing? You did your education programs, did some of them exist then? Your partnerships and all that and how did it develop to what it is today in such a short amount of time?
Crystal Mandica: Well, I can speak to a little bit about our educational projects. During the time that Mark was still working at the botanical garden, we just had this idea of wanting to share our love for animals and the concept of the need to conserve them. And we had a large amount of animals at home. It became one of our hobbies was to collect these really beautiful amphibians and reptiles.
And it turned out that through a few conversations with friends that there was a need for amphibians and reptiles to be brought to schools basically, to kids. And so what we did was we created critter camp. And so that was our first educational initiative and that was bringing an educational component to kids during the summer.
And so it gave them a chance to learn about what amphibians and reptiles actually were, and then actually get a chance to touch them and hold them and get a chance to see what they’re like up close and to develop a real love for them so that they would then turn that love into passion to help to save them.
Mark Mandica: I might also say that Crystal’s really pioneered this critter camp and she’s got a real gift connecting with kids about these things. And I don’t think that we realized… Well, we certainly didn’t know we were going to be starting a nonprofit, but the critter camp really fits perfectly into our mission. It serves several purposes. It’s gotten very popular.
We had 330 campers last summer with… I don’t know if that’s a lot, but that sounds like a lot.
Crystal Mandica: This is a lot for us.
Mark Mandica: And so it helps support the conservation initiatives, which are challenging to fund, and it also is building an army of little conservationists who appreciate these animals and understand that they need to be protected. So it’s really serving our mission perfectly.
Tania Marien: [13:28] I can only imagine. It must be. And your programming is so extensive because you have events from critter birthday parties to field trips, to afterschool clubs, to homeschool programs, science illustration internships. You have school programs, college programs, the Master Herpetologist Certificate program is fantastic.
Mark Mandica: Yeah.
Tania Marien: [13:52] You even have critter camp for adults, which you’ve called-
Mark Mandica: That’s right.
Tania Marien: [13:55] … Critters and Cabernet.
Crystal Mandica: That’s a lot of fun.
Tania Marien: [13:59] Yeah.
Mark Mandica: It’s been really fun to think about different ways to engage with people and the community has really… seemed to value what we’re offering because the Master Herpetologist just was like… I was like, “I think that would be really cool if we offered a Master Herpetologist Program because as far as I can tell, there’s no other one on the planet.
I have so many great colleagues that are gifted educators as well, so we have some amazing educators teaching this class and the students get a ton out of it and it’s very rewarding. And so it just had really great luck, but to be honest, it’s really the amphibians and reptiles that are selling those for us. Critter camp is a reptile and amphibian summer camp, so obviously kids love it.
Tania Marien: [14:51] Right.
Crystal Mandica: And it’s really funny because we have run critter camp, this was our fifth year and we just kept getting a lot of feedback from parents saying, “Hey, I wish there was a critter camp for us.” So we listened for a few years and we thought, yeah, you know what? Let’s give that a try. And what better way to engage with amphibians and reptiles than to add a little bit of wine to it. That made it a little extra fun for us, for the adults.
Tania Marien: [15:25] And so the adults, they are loving this program?
Crystal Mandica: We hope so.
Mark Mandica: They keep coming back, so I think-
Tania Marien: [15:36] They keep coming back? That is great. Your Master Herpetologist Program, there is of course, the Master Naturalist Program. Did you model it after that program or did you create it an entirely different way?
Mark Mandica: Yes. The Master Naturalist Program, and then there’s a Master Birder Program here as well. I melded the two a bit. Master Naturalist at least in Atlanta, meets once a month for a year, and the Master Birder meets every week for eight weeks. So we stretch it out medium, but it was certainly based on the success and the curriculum of some of these other programs for sure.
Tania Marien: [16:22] And the graduates of the Master Herpetologist Program, what have they done? Do they help with the foundation or have they initiated their own projects or what?
Mark Mandica: Both. One of our master herpetologists has launched a community science program focusing on snakes in Atlanta called the Urban Kings. Several of our master herpetologists are now volunteering or interning at the foundation, so that’s very rewarding. But we’ve only been going with that program for a year, so we don’t have that many certified master herpetologists yet.
Tania Marien: [17:06] When you launched your program, as you mentioned, you started in your basement, someone invited you into their space. How did you expand your community from that point on? How did you build your community? And what did you decide would be your community building philosophy?
Mark Mandica: That’s a great question. Getting the space was key, so that was the Blue Heron Nature Preserve, which is a wonderful spot in Atlanta. And we’ve expanded inside of that building twice already and we’re expanding a third time in January. And a lot of that is because of the community. Once we had a space… It’s hard to invite the community into your basement.
So once we had a space, a lot of the people from the botanical garden came, a lot of the partners that we had formed on other conservation projects were in complete support of what we’re doing. We didn’t want to be… We wanted to be able to prioritize amphibians in a way that most institutions are not able to.
Usually amphibian’s are part of some other conservation program and we needed to make them priority one. And really that was it. Once we had that, we started getting a lot of interest. I was invited by a partner to give a Science Tavern lecture in Atlanta and almost 100 people came to hear about this brand new nonprofit.
One of the audience members offered to run our communications program. She’s in communications at the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), and just these really gifted, passionate people that wanted to help. I think we have… we’re pushing 90 volunteers and interns right now and we just keep attracting. We do a lot of public engagement and that brings people. We’re very welcoming and inclusive.
And every time we greet the public, we tell them, at the moment there’s so many opportunities, we need all the help we can get. There’s unlimited opportunities to get involved, whether you want to do a weekly thing or a monthly thing or a random thing, we can accommodate all those types of people, and it seems to work really well. Right?
Crystal Mandica: Yeah. We have found some really passionate people that are willing to volunteer their time and we couldn’t do it without them clearly at this point. We couldn’t do it without them.
Tania Marien: [19:55] You’ve grown so quickly, and what I’ve noticed by reviewing your website and your programs is that you have a large… well, a large staff already, a large group of people who work with you because… and I counted, I had to count because it was just so wild to me that you started with the two of you, and now the leadership team is composed of three people.
You have a staff of four, a collections team of 15, communications team of nine, the Atlanta amphibian monitoring team of three, four interns, seven board of directors, five people on your scientific advisory board. And those people range from local Atlanta, South Carolina from the States all the way out to Manchester, England, and partnerships with 53 partners.
Mark Mandica: Yes.
Tania Marien: [20:53] And a statement about your partnership, which is presented beautifully.
Mark Mandica: Oh, thank you.
Tania Marien: [21:00] How did you develop that many partnerships in such a short amount of time?
Mark Mandica: Every single one of these conservation initiatives is dependent on partnerships and collaborations, and none of them will work just solo. And that’s really important. And the outpouring of support that we’ve gotten from the amphibian conservation community has been tremendous, really. And we do a lot of communication like engagement locally, but also the communications team that you referenced of nine people, they’re pushing the message out.
That same inclusive, welcoming, critical messaging goes out every day as well. With that same, if you want to help conservative amphibians, let’s do it. And I think that’s really served us well.
Crystal Mandica: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Mark Mandica: And it’s important to mention that none of those partnerships are just in name only, we’re actively working with these people and it’s very gratifying.
Tania Marien: [22:14] Exactly. And that message comes through because you’ve put it, you’ve put that one sentence descriptor about how you work with that particular organization. It’s wonderful. You show your work very well on your website-
Mark Mandica: Thank you.
Tania Marien: [22:32] It’s really impressive.
Crystal Mandica: I do have to say that Mark actually created the website. He is a very gifted person in many ways, so that’s one way that he shines. And it was really just a labor of love for him and we mapped it out all together trying to say what it was that we wanted to convey to the public, and basically he went to work and he said, “We have these many things that we need to let people know about.” And he did it. He’s amazing. He’s great at web design.
Tania Marien: [23:09] You’ve also written a lot of articles, Mark. When you write for a general audience and communicate to a general audience, what messages do you feel resonates with people?
Mark Mandica: I’m still with the general audience finding that the majority of people aren’t aware that amphibians are declining or that they’re disappearing or worse, they’re already extinct. I’ve tried to work on different ways to get people engaged, that one doesn’t… that turn them off or make them feel hopeless or feel like… Some people are just flat out, don’t believe it, there’s a lot of that as well.
It’s really challenging to find the right balance anywhere because there are at least a dozen documented causes for amphibian declines and it’s pretty bleak. So you have to convey that with some positivity as well, and also you’re telling people some things that they don’t want to hear.
Tania Marien: [24:22] What are some of the causes for amphibian decline?
Mark Mandica: There’s habitat loss is the number one, so there are a lot of times even subtle changes to their habitat will make it no longer suitable for them. That can affect animals in developed areas, but also amphibians from pristine areas are being impacted by diseases that humans have inadvertently moved around into habitats where the amphibians had never seen that particular disease before, so it can have a very significant impact. There’s several fungal pathogens that are devastating to amphibians worldwide.
The one that people really don’t want to hear about is the hundreds of millions of frogs that are killed every year by cats, outdoor cats are just devastating the amphibians and that can get very touchy. So a lot of times we team up with our Audubon Society neighbors that share the facility with us and about messaging because birds are also really suffering from outdoor pet and feral cats or.
Hundreds of millions is not a sustainable number of amphibians, so I would say of the fourth cause that I’d like to bring up is climate. The species that we’re working on really breed in very shallow ephemeral wetlands and are very dependent on somewhat predictable weather patterns, and that’s getting less and less hard to predict.
We’ve had endangered salamanders out in the wild that have been drying out or they’re not getting the rain at the times that they naturally would have for the last several years. It only seems to be getting worse. It makes it harder when you’re trying to build conservation programs for these species, like how do you take that into consideration as you move forward?
And there are others, but those are the four that came to my head.
Tania Marien: [26:38] Yeah, I know. I read an article where you were interviewed the impact of Hurricane Michael-
Mark Mandica: That’s right.
Tania Marien: [26:46] … on the salamanders and your impulse, you mentioned in the article, your impulse was to go down and collect some salamanders before the hurricane got there. How do you manage the conservation under those types of conditions?
Mark Mandica: Well, that salamander is our highest priority. That’s the flatwood salamander and that’s our logo is a flatwood salamander, and that’s the species we had in our basement. St. Marks that suffered that direct hit from Hurricane Michael, that’s the last place that has significant numbers of that species.
And we’re basically not even considering that area for conservation. When we discussed where to release animals, we’re basically trying to move them more inland. So St. Marks will probably be uninhabitable before too long and it’s the last stronghold for that species, so it’s really, really challenging or trying to predict where that will be above water in the future in 50 or 100 years and focusing on those areas for conservation.
Tania Marien: [28:12] Your efforts involve the immediate area, you’re in Atlanta-
Mark Mandica: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tania Marien: [28:18] … right? In Georgia, and do you get involved with efforts in other States as well in some way, shape or form, or are you primarily focused in your region?
Mark Mandica: At first, we were just trying to keep it as wide as possible and that at three years. What it seems like now as we would be best serving the amphibians if we kept our focus in the Southeast. Not necessarily Georgia, we definitely work in Florida and South Carolina and we are in talks now to expand into Alabama.
But there are so many imperiled species here in the Southeast and we’re primally located to focus on those, and that seems where we’re most needed right now.
Tania Marien: [29:10] As your organization has grown and you’ve become involved with so many different partners and so many different projects, what have you found works best for you? You just mentioned that you are focusing more your efforts in particular area, but what else have you learned throughout this process of very rapid growth and significant impact that you have?
Mark Mandica: Oh, what have we learned?
Crystal Mandica: That’s a tough one.
Mark Mandica: It is a tough one, but we believe firmly in being inclusive and I think that is shown in the types of people that we attract to volunteer with us and also in our partner base. And I think that that’s probably the most important thing right now as I said, we are really wide open and we get really… We’ve been able to attract so many great partners, and interns, and volunteers, and students and staff people. Everyone’s so great.
Crystal Mandica: Yeah. I think we’ve also learned that people actually like to see what we’re doing and we are generally not open to the public for people to visit, but there are certain times of year, probably about twice a year that we invite the public to come into our labs and our space to see what we do. We just really received an outpouring of interest and people being really excited when they come to our labs to see what we’re all about and meet the animals that we’re working with.
Because it’s actually true, these animals all have their own personalities and the community is able to see that when they visit us. And we’re really proud of that.
Tania Marien: [31:01] You have so many partners, how did you establish trust with those partners initially? Because at the beginning you are an unknown entity. You are for all they know two very enthusiastic, you’re naturalists. And how did you establish trust with them and how long did it take to earn their trust and their confidence in general?
Mark Mandica: We’re pretty trusting people and for some of these relationships, not a great deal of trust was needed at the outset. And so depending on each relationship, we could afford different levels of trust. A lot of our partners, our state and federal governments take that for what it’s worth. The individual people are amazing, but it’s hard to put a lot of trust in certain governmental agencies where some decisions are out of their control.
We started the foundation, what gave us the courage at the outset was a promise for a federal startup grant that did not come, for example. And so that’s a mixed bag because we had the courage to start, which we wouldn’t have had, and because that money did not come through or it came through years later, we had to get creative with funding ourselves. We didn’t want to have to be beholden or needing to rely on grants that even if the intention was there, sometimes it’s hard to provide money.
In the grand scheme, the conservation of salamanders is not a high priority for most people, most federal agencies, so we are developing a model where we can ensure that we have the resources we need to fund these programs and somehow it’s worked out for three and a half years. I should mention, Crystal and I have not been paid. We are volunteers. It’s an elaborate hobby right now is what we’re doing.
Tania Marien: [33:32] Is The Amphibian Foundation then a, I don’t want to call it side project because it’s a lot more than that.
Mark Mandica: I hear what you’re saying. It’s its own thing because it’s all I do, there’s nothing else. But it is not… I I don’t know how to explain it. There’s been specific times where I have been paid for my specific task, but I haven’t been able to take a paycheck yet.
Tania Marien: [34:03] Oh yeah. And so your career then as freelance educators, as independent professionals has been since 2016 then?
Crystal Mandica: Right.
Mark Mandica: A little bit earlier for Crystal with the critter camp. That started sooner.
Crystal Mandica: But yeah, a lot of it is just a lot of hoping and trying to prepare as much as we can, trying to put through grants and then just looking for any opportunity to come out and talk to people, and hopefully get a little bit of interest in what we’re doing. And then hopefully that leads to some donations from our community.
Tania Marien: [34:50] Where can people find you on the web?
Mark Mandica: The website that you were so kind about is amphibianfoundation.org, and then we are on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook as well. And we’re pretty responsive if someone reaches out to us.
Tania Marien: [35:11] And are you on YouTube as well besides you?
Mark Mandica: Yeah, a little bit. We have a few videos, but we’re trying to figure out the best way to get more videos out there because I think that’s an important avenue that we haven’t taken advantage of yet.
Tania Marien: [35:32] They would be a fantastic compliment to your already fantastic website.
Mark Mandica: Oh, thank you.
Tania Marien: [35:38] I think you’ve done a great job and I spent a lot of time on your website and learned so many different things. What do you feel people need to know about amphibians that they don’t know?
Mark Mandica: Well, that’s a great question because we talked about that quite a bit. One thing that we have is a growing online resource for things you can do to make a difference for amphibians. And a lot of times it involves maybe making your yard more amphibian friendly. That can be very important when you’re talking about animals with a really small home range. You never know if your yard is going to make a difference in connecting two other amphibian populations.
So all of these little networks can be really crucial for them. And we’ve been putting together a resource online for years about different things that people can do at home for amphibians. And there’s also no matter where anybody is, there’s ways to get involved with the amphibian community at large through community science, so we have a very comprehensive community science program here in Atlanta, the Metro Atlanta Amphibian Monitoring Program.
I boast about that because most other community science programs don’t also include salamanders, they’re usually frog call based because frogs are very cooperative in that they’re singing at night and salamanders are silent, so they’re a little harder to find. We train people how to survey for salamanders and try to inspire them to get out there.
But no matter where you are, there is a frog watch program that you can either join or start no matter where you are. Any information that you can collect will be important to that program and there’s other ways too that are all outlined on our site.
Tania Marien: [37:54] You provide a lot of really interesting training opportunities and learning opportunities through the foundation. One in particular that really jumped out at me was your Assistant Metamorphosis Training. Explain what an assisted metamorphosis is.
Mark Mandica: Absolutely. It’s another word for head starting and it’s basically when you… we’ve been assisting gopher frogs through metamorphosis for 11 years now, so that’s Georgia’s rarest frog and they are adorable. But we collect their eggs with permission from the state of course, and then we rear them up through the whole tadpole stage, and through metamorphosis, and then we release them sometimes where we got them, sometimes at a state site.
And that gets them through the stage where they usually get eaten. Usually 2% of the gopher frogs will make it through metamorphosis and we can get that up to 80 or 90% through assisted metamorphosis.
Tania Marien: [39:09] Wow. That’s amazing.
Crystal Mandica: Yeah, it’s such a huge-
Mark Mandica: Thank you.
Crystal Mandica: … difference.
Tania Marien: [39:13] Yeah. Fantastic. You do so much through organization. You change hearts and minds, you help people see things they can no longer and see. So what’s next for you?
Crystal Mandica: We’ve got a lot going.
Mark Mandica: Yeah. Our biggest initiative outside of starting the foundation itself is starting in January, which is what, two weeks from now where we are just… We are launching our bridge program for conservation research and we’re really proud of this because it’s an alternative learning model where we can provide mentored research experiences for people that are either graduating from college and not sure what they want to do, or not sure if they want to go to graduate school, or even graduating high school and they’re not sure if they want to go to college, or maybe they want to get some concrete research experience.
And we have a program that we’re launching where people can come from one to three semesters and very hands on, very mentored, or they can contribute to conservation and also get a lot of great experience. It’s another really magical thing because a lot of our partners are loving this idea because it’s really great and they want to help.
So they’re going to come and teach two weeks on a very specific skill and that just broadens this program and makes it even cooler. At first, we were going to do on fieldwork experiences on endangered species, which is good enough, but it just keeps expanding, and expanding, and we’re focusing on so many great things. It’s a really well-rounded program and we already have two students, so it’s pretty exciting.
Tania Marien: [41:19] That is exciting. That is a fantastic program.
Mark Mandica: Thank you.
Tania Marien: [41:23] My background as yours is in organismal biology, and so-
Crystal Mandica: Wow.
Tania Marien: [41:29] … that’s great. As you work through your new program and develop your model, you hit the road and go to all the other States-
Mark Mandica: That’s right.
Tania Marien: [41:41] … and talk about your program.
Mark Mandica: Yes. That’s right. I can see that. Once we prove that this is going to work, and I guess the ultimate proof will eventually be Crystal and I actually getting paid, but I can see it being very valuable to have multiple amphibian foundations throughout the country for sure.
Tania Marien: [42:10] Wonderful. Is there anything you feel you need to say or want people to know that we haven’t discussed?
Crystal Mandica: Well, we want people to reach out to us if they have any questions. We definitely love to be a resource for people that want to create more animal critter-friendly backyards, things of that nature. How they can get involved in their own communities if they would like to contribute to the Metro Atlanta Amphibian Monitoring Program if they’re here in Atlanta or even work with their own frog watch chapter, where they are is just so important.
And just to get a little support because sometimes you feel alone in the world and you might care about a little frog that comes to see you outside your door, but you might not know the best way to make sure that your yard is friendly for him. So we want people to know that we would love to answer questions if they have any and to reach out to us because we’re here.
Tania Marien: [43:16] To learn more about The Amphibian Foundation, their programs, trainings, and research, visit the show notes for this episode at talaterra.com
Tania Marien: [43:32] Talaterra is a podcast for and about independent educators working in natural resource fields and environmental education. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends and colleagues. Thank you so much for joining us today. This is Tania Marien.